How managed OTT works
You sign up for a plan, brand the service and upload your catalog. The vendor provides hosting, encoding, delivery, security, app updates and monitoring. New features and fixes arrive without work on your side.
What the vendor takes on
- Infrastructure that scales with demand
- Uptime, monitoring, backups and disaster recovery
- Security patches and DRM integrations
- Keeping each app compatible as device platforms change
- Store submissions and resubmissions
Managed vs self-hosted
With a self-hosted license you pay once for the software, then pay separately for hosting, delivery and the engineers who maintain it. You gain control and, often, the source code.
With a managed platform you pay monthly and need no engineering team. You give up the ability to modify the code. For most content owners the managed route costs less in total and launches sooner; self-hosting suits organizations that must own the code or host on their own premises.
How managed platforms charge
- A flat tier by audience size
- A fee per subscriber
- A share of revenue
- Usage, such as delivery and storage above an allowance
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